Hi WHS,Welcome to the Healing Well 
Wrapped Club! You mentioned that something you ate earlier without a problem can bother you later. There are a couple things that come to mind...your wrap becomes increasingly irritated as you challenge it with swallowing. You have to swallow, of course, but the more you swallow (even dry swallowing saliva) causes more stress on your wrap. For that reason, something can cause you problems even though you happily ate it earlier. I'm not sure what you're eating, but if it involves chewing, you may have taken a bigger bite, or not chewed it enough.
As far as going back to work, I agree with Stacey. If you have six weeks, plan on taking them. You'll be very glad you did. I'm a retired second grade teacher and was still in the classroom when I had my surgery. I had a teaching assistant, so thought I could go back half time after two weeks. I'm so glad I didn't! My class had a lot of illness going around, and my principal didn't want me to come back and get sick. I ended up staying out 6 weeks and when I went back to school, I was strong and felt fine. I'm certain I would have struggled had I gone back at 2 weeks.
In my experience, surgeons don't really know what this recovery is like. You have to go through it to understand it. I don't know how much you're lurked around the forum, but if you haven't already read it, you might want to read my early recovery journal:
https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=45&m=2183443
Glad you've joined the forum! It's a great place to ask questions and get support from others who've been through the same recovery.
Happy healing,
Denise